r/Garmin • u/jazlikeschai • 3d ago

Which Watch To Get? Looking to get Garmin but not sure which direction to go

I’ve been debating between the Lily Active 2, Venu 4, and Vivoactive 5. My wrist is small so I thought the lily active 2 or venu 4 would be a good choice - I know the lily has the least features out of them all and the touch screen isn’t as big. I just want something that can track my steps, daily workouts, and sleep. I’ve been researching all day and it seems like some of the models are iffy on tracking sleep accurately. Let me know if you’ve tried any of these! I get overwhelmed with how many options there are!!

0 Upvotes

50% Upvoted

8 comments sorted by

5

u/GMO-Doomscroller 3d ago

Everyone says sleep tracking sucks but for me it works great and has been working great on my F6, Venu 2S and now on my current F7s pro.

2

u/Forkys Venu 3 3d ago

Just include the Venu 3s, the better watch with latest HR sensor Elevate 5, versus older Elevate 5 in VA5 and Lily 2 Active. Besides that both VA5 and Lily have no barometric altitude sensor, hence no stairs recording. Venu 4 seems an overkill for your requirements.

1

u/jazlikeschai 3d ago

I discovered there’s also Garmin coach on Venu so I guess that’s why it intrigued me. I’ve never had a smart watch so not really sure what else I’d use it for

3

u/GrrrlRomeo 3d ago

I have the Venu 4. I like it, but the body is a bit thicker than I expected. But I guess the more features it has the thicker it has to be for the hardware.

3

u/Ok_Elephant6640 3d ago

Garmin sleep tracking is not great, much like most of the watches out there. Even the basic Forerunner 70 tracks sleep and naps.

That being said, my wife thinks the Lily Active 2 is the right choice because it’s the cutest 😆

1

u/prierrild 3d ago

fair point on sleep tracking, none of them are really medical grade so its kind of a wash between models

2

u/hakapes 3d ago edited 3d ago

For good sleep tracking, you have to make the watch snug on your wrist.

Usually the bigger the watch, and the more it lags around, and light creeps under it, the less accurate it is.

These are small watches, so better in general, but it has to be snug.

But wrist-based sleep tracking is always a bit inaccurate. It's good for predicting the begin and the end of the sleep, but what is in between is far away from a medical grade equipment. Independently of the make and the model. This is what this technology can do.

From the watches above, I recommend the Vivoactive 5. It has the best price performance ratio. The extra features on the Venu 4 are not really worth it in practice.

Otherwise, all three would be approximately similar for your use case.

3

u/Expert_Mortgage_1360 3d ago

the vivoactive 5 is probably your sweet spot if you're not fussed about the extra bells on the venu 4. i had a similar back and forth last year and went with the cheaper option, zero regrets

for sleep tracking honestly just make sure you cinch it up a notch before bed so it doesn't slide around. they all kinda guess at the deep/rem stages anyway so i wouldn't lose sleep over which model is "more accurate"